hi i would like to learn the violin and did ask my old flute teacher would also taught violin she said that adults didnt do well as you really need to learn as a child for the posture and muscles to develop i still want to learn and have xmas money burninga hole in my pocket all ready

i would be interested too hear from any one who has started as an adlut and how they found it i play flute to grade 5ish at the moment

If you want to learn violin go for it. I started violin a few weeks before I turned 41 and am really enjoying it. I'm aiming to get good enough to join in with the rest of the family when they play chamber music. Yes it does feel a little strange at times but I'm seeing progress and that's all that matters to me. It's also a great confidence boost for son no2 to be able to correct me when I do something wrong.

Well, I was 38 when I started the violin. It's a great instrument and I'm really enjoying it.

Don't see why you shouldn't do the same at 34.

But if your teacher has a hang-up about teaching adults, then find a better teacher.

And best of luck with all your music-making.


Cheers

Katyjay

As with most instruments, of course you need to learn the violin as a child if you want to play it professionally. But, even if you didn't learn as a child, you can certainly become a reasonably competent amateur violinist in a few years. I'm much older than you, I started learning the viola last year (with no previous experience of any instrument except piano and guitar), and I'm already good enough to have fun playing simple stuff. Go for it! But find a different teacher, since this one is already convinced that you will fail.

If you haven't decided where to buy your new violin, a search of the strings forum might yield dividends.

I took up the flute and violin in April at the age of 35 and I'm my teacher's first adult pupil. You're definitely not too old to start learning and there are many advantages to learning as an adult. A good teacher will instruct on proper posture and technique but this comes with time and practice but the Strings forum gives great advice which I've found very helpful.

The violin is a brilliant instrument (as is the flute) and I love playing it after a rubbish day at work. The only warning I would give is that it gets very addictive. I started on a Chinese violin then that broke (a month before my exam), so treated myself to an old French violin. Then decided I had to get a new case to do justice to my new violin, then a new bow and have just Mr Blackbird to get me some posh rosin for Xmas.

Don't let anyone put you off learning the violin, get a good sympathetic teacher, a nice violin and you'll never look back

All the very best.

Of course you can! :-)
You can do anything at all if you decide you want to.

(Don't mind me, I'm in the optimistic positive place between getting my exams over with and finding out the results - enjoy it while it lasts, I'll come crashing back to earth any day now.)

Seriously though, you already read music and have some general musical background from learning flute - that gives you a huge headstart. Plenty of other people on the forums have started violin as adults (you'll probably find a whole load of them on the Strings forum). You might find it takes a little bit of getting used to and that you don't adapt to the physical side of it as quickly as a kid might, but you should be able to play the thing. My older sister took up tumbling/acrobatics as an adult and I'd guess that makes more demands on posture and muscles than learning an instrument does.

I started violin at 17 (almost 18), so that hardly counts as learning as a child. I'm pretty bad at it, but that has nothing to do with my age and everything to do with the fact that I've never taken it seriously. It's fun to play a few tunes on now and then, but most of the time I'd rather play something else.

Good luck with it,
T.

Its never too late...I think you should go for it and enjoy it. You can already read music and the posture will come given time...don't be put off by negative comments from teachers...If one teacher isnt keen to teach you then find one who is...

Good luck

Andrew

Yes, do come and join us on the strings forum! We have a thread especially for beginners on the upper strings

I started violin when I was 19 and have not really had a problem posture wise. The only thing I have found difficult in terms of muscle development is the stretching of the fourth finger- but that comes with time and I daresay a child wouldn't find it that much easier.

Do find yourself a good teacher though; one that is used to and enjoys teaching adults would be best.

I agree with everything said so far - it's never too late. I took up piano at the age of 37, violin at 38 and now clarinet at 39. All good fun! Which is what making music should be about.

Good luck!

hi thanks everyone i am flying off to india tomorrow and have a list of music shops three pages long !! violins are played in india sat cross legged so i might find a bargain the teacher in question is no longer my flute teacher i have a really nice new one who doesnt laugh when i get things wrong and i know of a very nice violin teacher in the area

i am away for a month so happy christmas to everyone on the forums

monkey flute soon to be monkey violinx

I agree with all! you can become a good violin player, of course we will never become professionals starting as adults because of the big competition out there we simply don't have the 'time advantage' we need!
BUT you can still be a very good player anyway!
I started at the age of 37 11 months ago and I am now almost ready for my grade 3 exam! will sit this in next session! so much for adults having problems with it! and I was a complete beginner too, having started piano only a month prior to violin. It is addictive as someone else mentioned, I think I definitely prefer it to piano, I just can't put it down when I start practicing! My son tells me: Jo (he calls me by name not 'mum') you said you would finish by 5pm it is now 5:30 pm!!! you have practice for an hour! and he still doesn't manage to make me stop until half an hour later LOL and that's just with threats of him about to die because I leave him without his dinner

If you start to learn violin at your age you will be making a very serious mistake.



.... You should be taking up the PIANO!!!!!!!

Never too old too learn thats my motto and you have an added advantage that hearing deteriorates so you wont be able to hear the screeching only kidding go for it if your keen I took up the oboe at 33.

I disagree. I'm doing grade 4 violin pieces after nearly 18 months of sporadic lessons. Violin teacher says I could go all the way to grade 8 - if I want to. Same goes for piano as well.

Go for it monkey flute!!!!!!!!!

I think MadTom was cracking a joke and attempting to 'sell' the piano to MonkeyFlute
But even though I play piano too I'd say GO FOR THE VIOLIN

You never know with some Forum members.... but I suspect you're right!

Well spotted!!

Actually I love the violin. It is a wonderful instrument. Imagine being able to sustain and even swell a note after attacking it. And to be able to play perfectly in tune in any key, instead of always being slightly out. And you can carry one about with you. And then memorising the repertoire cannot be so difficult as piano - there is usually just a single musical line to master. And orchestras need dozens of violinists - but only occasionally a guest pianist.

If I could go back 40 years I might choose violin instead of the piano.

But every time I am tempted to learn a second instrument (I have dabbled with guitar and clarinet) I just think how I could spend those extra hours on the piano. I'd rather be pretty good on one instrument than mediocre on two or three or more.

That would be nice ...

Ooooh! My turn to 'sell' my instrument!! :-)

What you want here is a pipe organ. You can sustain a note for as long as you can keep a finger or foot on it, or until someone cuts the power to the blower (their patience would probably give up long before you did). And you have one or more expression pedals, specifically so you can swell a note like that - it's even called the Swell pedal (if there's just one).

And, as a pianist, your exisiting keyboard facility and reading of two stave polyphony will give you a headstart.



Ah. This is where it comes a bit unstuck. Tuning is more of a problem than on piano. And it's even less portable and fewer places have one available. And there's three staves of music to learn, plus all the organ management stuff (registration, manual changes, etc.) so memorisation is unusual even for recitalists. And orchestras need an organist even less often than they need a pianist.

*gives up on attempt to hawk the organ*




*spots a possible selling point* ;-)
Organ is sufficiently similar to piano that time spent practicing it might even benefit your piano playing.
I "worked" for a piano exam by hardly touching the piano but doing the organ exam 2 grades lower, then working for the one directly below it, and passed the piano one having done hardly any piano practice.

I get where you're coming from though, because that's how I usually think about the piano - time spent working on it could be spent on organ or on another instrument (I'm an incurable dabbler, so I've had to opt for mediocre on several rather than good on one, but piano isn't one of the chosen ones).


Anyway, when starting an instrument as an adult, the goal is generally to have fun with it and get reasonably good. Getting right to the top isn't normally part of the plan. So, playing more than one instrument 'for fun', rather than trying to get to FRSM in a single instrument is quite typical among adult learners. No reason why MonkeyFlute can't have fun with flute and violin and get pretty good at both, especially as they're instruments that aren't going to interfere with each other at all (two woodwinds might cause confusion between fingerings, a treble clef and a bass clef instrument might lead to occasion mix-ups in note reading, small bore brass with single reed woodwind might cause embouchure problems, etc., but I really can't think of /anything/ like that for the flute-violin combination).

T.

I'm going to be completely honest and say yes, you could do well, but you need a teacher who's experienced at teaching adults.

It's absolutely true that it's best to start in childhood - imagine learning to write in adulthood if you'd never picked up a pencil before......

If you can already read music this will help a lot. If you've played a stringed instrument before, especially guitar, this can also help a lot. If you already have a good sense of rhythm and a strong aural awareness this will help immeasurably. If you're a naturally relaxed sort of person this will help a lot too!

You will also have to be prepared to play some quite elementary pieces for a while until your technique starts to develop - you just cannot rush the violin, especially as an adult beginner. Some of my adult beginners have balked at spending much time on simple elementary pieces but this stage just cannot be rushed - I can't emphasise this enough!!! You also need to have the time to be able to practise for half an hour a day, preferably an hour, pretty much every day of the week.

Good luck - the violin is a fantastic instrument - go for it!

Why guitar specifically? I'd have thought that 'cello or other bowed strings would be better than guitar. Or mandolin as, although it's fretted, it's tuned like a violin.




Depends how fast you want to progress. If you do only quarter of an hour a day, or do half an hour only four times a week, you'll still learn. It'll just take longer than if you do more practice.
I'm assuming you want to play violin as well as flute, not instead of it. Which means that the time you have available for music practice will need to be shared between instruments. And hour every day on each instrument may not be feasible. So don't think that if you can't find that much time it means you won't be able to learn.

Juggling practice time for two or more instruments is perfectly do-able. There'll be times when one gets a lot more attention than the other (because of varying interest levels, impending exams/concerts or whatever), but as long as you do enough work on the other to keep things 'ticking over', so you don't slip backwards, that's OK.

T.

If they already played cello or madolin they probably wouldn't need to ask whether they could be successful at violin. I've taught several guitarists and have found they've done particularly well with the left hand.

As for practice time, the problem with only having a short time to devote to violin practice would be frustration at the slow progress, which could easily lead to wanting to give up.

Go for it!! but find a teacher who is either sympathetic to adult learners, or has experience of teaching adults already and enjoys it!

Adult learner needs are more specific and require a different focus to those of child pupils. In general, adults tend to be more demanding on and of themselves, so a teacher who is able to offer plenty of support and encouragement is essential.

I agree, as adults we are way more demanding of ourselves and if you have a teacher who doesn't know how to encourage you, you may well give up (I did for a few months until I found the right teacher).

You really can learn to play the violin as an adult, I started at 28ish and love it - it's been a complete love and hate affair with the fiddle, like all the most passionate relationships!

I reckon once you get going with the right support, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

Enjoy!

Allan

Give it a go. I'm sure you'll love it. It's never too late. I have a pupil who started clarinet at almost 70.

My mum started the violin at age 73!

Unfortunately finding the right teacher can be quite hard, but it's worth persevering until you do.

You are never too old for anything you fancy doing. Go for it. Grow old disgracefully fiddling away to your hearts content. Life's too short to worry about "am I too old??" Just do it. Find a nice teacher.
Beverley.

your mum ROCKS!

She's 75 now and playing in amateur orchestras and getting a huge amount of pleasure out of it. So it's never too late!

Does she play anything else?